A man charged with five counts of bank fraud was as much a victim of a counterfeiting ring as the banks where the fake checks were cashed, his attorney said.
Herschel Hargett is accused of recruiting homeless people in Atlanta and bringing them to Tennessee to cash fake checks at Regions Bank on Gunbarrel Road and at GreenBank in Athens, Tenn.
His trial started Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga, and the prosecution finished its case.
Hargett’s attorney, Lee Ortwein, said his client wasn’t aware of exactly what was going on within the counterfeiting scheme. The ring was overseen by two men, the defense said, and Hargett was set up as an easy target for police when the fragile scheme fell apart.
But according to Assistant U.S. Attorney James Brooks and witness testimonies on Monday, Hargett was part of a counterfeiting ring that picked up the homeless in Atlanta between January and September 2010 and drove them to the Chattanooga area to cash the checks.